Total Control (52 page)

"I wouldn't be surprised if Archer's prints turned up all over the place," Holman said. He cocked his head at the limo. "Particularly with all the blood in there."

Sawyer turned to the detective. "Got a motive?"

Royce held up the recorder. "Found this under Brophy. It's already been dusted." The detective hit the play button. They all listened to the tape until it stopped a few minutes later. Sawyer's face flushed.

"That's Jason Archer's voice," Hardy said. "Know it well." He shook his head. "Now if we just had a body to go along with the voice."

"And that's Sidney's voice," Jackson added. He looked over at his partner, who was leaning against a support column, looking miserable.

Sawyer assimilated the new information and plugged it into the mutating landscape this case had become. Brophy had taped the conversation the morning they had gone to interview Sidney. That's why the sonofabitch had looked so pleased with himself. That also explained his trip to New Orleans and his little frolic and detour through Sidney's hotel room. Sawyer grimaced. He never would have disclosed voluntarily what Sidney had told him about the phone call. Only now the secret was out. She had lied to the FBI.

Even if Sawyer testified--which he would do in a minute--that she had later disclosed to him the details of the phone call, she had still made plans to aid and abet a fugitive. Now she was looking at throw-away-the-key prison time. Amy Archer's tiny face intruded on his thoughts and his shoulders slumped even farther.

As Royce and Holman drifted away to continue their investigation, Hardy walked over to Sawyer. "You want my two cents?"

Sawyer nodded. Jackson joined them.

"I probably know a couple things that you don't. One being that Tyler, Stone was terminating Sidney Archer," Hardy said.

"Okay." Sawyer's eyes remained fixed on Hardy.

"Ironically, the letter of termination was found on Goldman's person.

It could've gone down like this: Archer comes down to the office on her own for some reason. Maybe it's innocent, maybe it's not.

She meets up with Goldman and Brophy, either by accident or arrangement. Goldman probably made Sidney Archer very familiar with the contents of the termination letter, and then they spring the tape on her. That's pretty heavy blackmail material."

"I agree the tape is very damaging, but what would they blackmail her for?" Sawyer's eyes were still fixed on his friend.

"Like I told you before, up until the plane crash, Sidney Archer was lead counsel on the CyberCom deal. She was privy to confidential information. Information that RTG would be dying to get their hands on. The price for that information is the tape. She either gives them the deal info or she goes to prison. The firm is terminating her anyway. What the hell does she care?"

Sawyer looked confused. "But I thought her husband had delivered that information to RTG already. The exchange on the videotape."

"Deals change, Lee. I know for a fact that since Jason Archer's disappearance the terms of Triton's offer for CyberCom have changed.

What Jason gave them was old news. They needed fresh stuff. Ironically, what the husband couldn't give them, the wife could."

"Sounds like they would've made a deal, then. So how does the killing part come in, Frank? Just because it was her gun doesn't mean she fired it." Sawyer was now being argumentative.

Hardy ignored the tone, continuing on with his analysis. "Maybe they couldn't agree to terms. Maybe things turned ugly. Maybe they decided the best way was to get the information they needed and then dispose of her. Maybe that's why they ended up in the limo.

Parker was carrying a gun; it was still in his holster, unfired. There might have been a struggle. She pulls her piece, fires and kills one of them in self-defense. Horrified, she decides not to leave any witnesses."

Sawyer was shaking his head vigorously. "Three able-bodied men against one woman? Doesn't make sense that the situation would've gotten out of their control. Assuming she was in the limo, I can't believe she would've been able to kill all three and just walk away."

"Maybe she didn't just walk away, Lee. She might've been wounded, for all we know."

Sawyer looked at the concrete floor beside the limo. There were several bloodstains, but none readily visible farther away from the limo. Inconclusive at best, but Hardy's scenario was plausible.

"So, she kills all three and then leaves without the tape. Why?"

Hardy shrugged. "Tape was found under Brophy. The guy was big, at least two hundred pounds of literally dead weight. It took two heavyweight cops to move the body when they were trying to I.D. him. That's when they spotted the tape. The simple answer may be that she physically couldn't get to it. Or maybe she didn't know it was under there. From the looks of it, it fell out of his pocket when he went down. Then she panicked and just ran. She tosses the gun in the sewer and gets the hell out of Dodge. How many times have we both seen that happen?"

Jackson looked at Sawyer. "Makes sense, Lee."

Sawyer, however, was doubtful. He walked over to Detective Royce, who was signing off on some paperwork.

"You mind if I call some of our forensics people in to check out a few things?"

"Hell, be my guest. I rarely turn down an assist from the FBI. You guys got all those federal dollars. Us? We're lucky if we have gas in the cars."

"I'd like to run a few tests on the interior of the limo. I'll have my team here within twenty minutes. I'd like them to do the exam with the bodies still in place. Then I'd like to do a more thorough search--minus the bodies, of course--back at the lab. Tow's on us."

Royce considered the request for a moment and then said, "I'll get the necessary paperwork in order." He looked suspiciously at Sawyer.

"Look, I'm always glad of the bureau's help, but this is our jurisdiction.

I'd be more than a little ticked to see credit misplaced when this one gets solved. You hear what I'm saying?"

"Loud and clear, Detective Royce. It's your case. Whatever we learn is yours to use in solving the crime. I sincerely hope it earns you a promotion and a nice raise."

"You and my wife."

"Can I ask a favor?"

"You can always ask," Royce replied.

"You mind having one of your techs get gunshot residue samples from each of the three corpses? We're running out of time on that one. I can have my people analyze the samples."

"You think one of them might have fired the gun?" Royce looked highly doubtful.

"Maybe, maybe not. We can pretty much tell one way or another, though."

Royce shrugged and motioned for one of his techs to come over.

After instructing her on what was wanted, they watched as she lugged over a battered, bulky crime scene kit, opened it and began preparations to perform a gunshot residue test, a GSR. However, time was running out: Samples optimally had to be collected within six hours of the gun having been fired, and Sawyer was afraid they were about to miss that deadline.

The tech dipped a number of cotton swabs in a diluted nitric acid solution. Separate swabs were rubbed over the front and back of each corpse's hands. If any of them had fired a gun recently, then testing would reveal deposits of barium and antimony, primer charge components used in the manufacture of virtually all ammo. It wasn't conclusive. If a positive result came back, it wouldn't necessarily mean any of them had fired the murder weapon, only some firearm within the last six hours. In addition, they could have merely han died the firearm after it had been fired--for instance, in a struggle-and gotten the residue from the exterior of the weapon after it had just been fired. But a positive GSR result could conceivably help Sidney Archer's cause, Sawyer figured. Even though all the evidence seemingly pointed to her involvement in the homicides, Sawyer was dead certain she hadn't pulled the trigger.

"One more favor?" Sawyer asked Detective Royce. Royce's eye brows shot up. "I'd like a copy of that tape."

"Sure. Whatever."

Sawyer rode the elevator back up to the lobby, walked to his car and phoned in for the FBI's forensics team. While he waited for them to arrive, one thought beat relentlessly through Sawyer's head.

Where the hell was Sidney Archer?

CHAPTER FIFTY

Usually eschewing any except the most modest makeup, Sidney now took great pains to stencil in her face with considerable detail, holding up her compact as she stood in the stall in the women's rest room at Penn Station. She had concluded that the man pursuing her wouldn't have figured her to come back here. She then put on a tan leather cowboy hat, pulling the brim down low over her forehead.

With enough artificial color on her face to almost qualify for hooker status and her bloody clothes in a shopping bag destined for a Dumpster, she walked out of the rest room attired in an assortment of garments she had spent the better part of the day acquiring: tight stone-washed blue jeans, pointy beige cowboy boots, thick white cotton shirt and a heavily insulated black leather bomber jacket. She looked nothing like the conservative Washington, D.C., attorney she had recently been and whom the police would soon be hunting down for murder. She made certain the .32 was carefully hidden away in an inner pocket. New York's gun laws were among the stiffest in the country.

A half-hour ride northeast on the commuter train took her to Stamford, Connecticut, one of a string of bedroom communities feeding the working New Yorker's desire to live outside the hyper-kinetic metropolis. A taxicab ride of twenty minutes took her to a lovely white brick home with black shutters nestled in a quiet neighborhood of similarly high-priced residences. The name PATTERSON was stenciled on the mailbox. Sidney paid the cabdriver, but instead of going to the front door she walked around back to the garage area. Next to the garage door hung a large, ornate wooden bird feeder. Sidney looked around and then stuck her hand into the feed, pushing through the rough particles until she got to the bottom of the feeder. She pulled out the set of keys buried there, went over to the back door, put a key in the lock and the door opened. Her brother, Kenny, and his family were in France. He was incredibly bright, ran a very successful independent publishing business, but was also absentminded as hell. He had locked himself out of every home he had ever owned, hence the keys in the bird feeder, a fact well known to every member of his family.

The home was old, solidly built and beautifully decorated, with large rooms and comfortable furnishings. Sidney did not have time to enjoy the surroundings. She went into a small study. Against one wall was a large enclosed oak cabinet. Using another key from the key ring, Sidney opened the heavy double doors and viewed the contents of the cabinet: An impressive array of shotguns and pistols loomed in front of her. She settled on a Winchester 1300 Defender.

The twelve-gauge shotgun was relatively light, weighing in under seven pounds. It chambered three-inch Magnum shells that would stop anything on two legs, and, perhaps most important, sported an eight-shot magazine. She put several boxes of Magnum shells into one of her brother's ammo bags she had pulled from a drawer in the cabinet. Next she looked over the pistols hanging on special hooks mounted into the wall of the cabinet next to the shotgun collection.

She had little confidence in the stopping force of the .32. She picked up several of the pistols, testing them for weight and comfort. Then she smiled as her hand closed around an old familiar: a Smith & Wesson Slim Nine complete with unblemished grip. She grabbed the pistol and a box of 9mm ammo, stuffed it in the same bag with the shotgun loads and locked the cabinet back up. Snagging a pair of binoculars off another shelf, Sidney left the room.

She ran upstairs to the master bedroom and spent several minutes going through her sister-in-law's clothing. Soon Sidney had assembled a suitcase full of warm clothing and footwear. A thought suddenly struck her. She switched on the small TV in the bedroom. She channel-surfed until she found an all-news station. The top story of the day was being recounted, and though she had been expecting it, her heart sank when her face appeared on the screen next to a picture of the limo. The news story was brief but devastating in portraying her inescapable guilt. Sidney received another shock as the screen split into two and she was joined by a photo of Jason. He looked tired in the photo, which she instantly recognized as the one on his Triton security badge. Apparently the media were finding the husband-wife master criminal angle an engaging one. Sidney studied her own face on the screen. She too looked tired, her hair plastered down on either side of her head. She and Jason looked...

guilty, she concluded. Even if they weren't. But right now, most of the country would believe them to be villains, a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde.

She rose on unsteady legs and on a sudden impulse went into the bathroom, where she stripped off her clothes and climbed in the shower. The sight of the limo had reminded her that she still carried vestiges on her person of those horrible few moments. She had closed and locked the bathroom door upon entering. Keeping the shower curtain wide open, she never left her back exposed to the door. The loaded .32 revolver lay within easy reach. The hot water took the chill off her bones. By accident she glimpsed her exhausted, gaunt face in the small mirror affixed to the shower wall and shuddered at the sight. She felt tired and old. Emotionally and mentally spent, her body was giving way on her. She could feel the physical decline inch by miserable inch. Then she gritted her teeth and slapped herself in the face. She couldn't give up now. She was an army of one, but a damned determined one. She had Amy. That was something no one would ever take away from her.

Finished with her shower, she dressed warmly and raced to the mudroom, where she grabbed a heavy-duty flashlight off a hook. It had suddenly occurred to her that the police would be checking with all of her family and friends. She carried everything out to the garage, where she eyed the dark blue Land Rover Discovery, one of the sturdiest vehicles ever built. She put her hand under the left fender and pulled out a set of car keys. Her brother really was something.